The present invention relates to a fixed-quantity drink vending machine for selling a specified amount of drink.
In a conventional fixed-quantity drink vending machine, an amount of drink to be ejected into a cup is memorized in advance in the machine as sales data according to the size of the cup and a type of drink. Drink ejection systems in such machines have different performances even if the machines are of the same type. Thus, the amount of drink to be sold must be reset to an appropriate value for each machine prior to the actual drink sale. A sales amount adjustment device has been conventionally used to adjust the amount of drink to be sold or the opening duration of drink ejection valves.
When using the sales amount adjustment device, however, adjustment and test sale must be repeated until the amount of drink to be sold reaches a desired value. This requires a large amount of time and labor, and the drink is wastefully ejected.
In addition, for some types of drinks, the amount of drink ejected at the time when the opening duration of the drink election valve is adjusted and set by repeating ejections sometimes differs from the amount of the drink continuously elected by pressing a drink sales button once in an actual sale. This is due to variations in the amount of drink ejected immediately after the ejection has been started, and it occurs particularly in the case of drinks under gas pressure. FIG. 10 shows the example, wherein the initial ejecting amount is different from the amount continuously ejected.
It is an object of the invention to provide a fixed-quantity drink vending machine, which allows an amount of drink ejected into a cup during adjustment to be registered as an amount of drink to be actually sold.